The Steady Goodbye
by cellotlix
Summary: "Their careers are storied. The first human Spectres, Admirals of the Alliance Navy. They're celebrities and war heroes, and they've done it all side by side. They have innumerable special commendations and enough honors to decorate the broadside of a freighter. Together, they raised three children. Together, they lived. These are the last moments of their lives together."


**AN: I got this idea while I was working on the latest chapter of A Very Long Engagement. It's not really related at all, but it was just so tragic and terrible I had to get it on paper, the way you lance a wound. **

**If you read, please share your thoughts with me. Thank you for reading, everyone.  
**

When the call came, Commander Hannah Shepard Alenko had been about to turn in for the evening. She'd look back to that last moment of normalcy with a degree of jealousy for her former self. That had been the last moment everything had been all right with the world. That had been the last moment her family had been whole.

"_Hannah_?" She realized a half a second late that it was Aunt Jack; her voice was so hoarse that she hadn't been able to recognize it at first. Not hoarse, she realized after a moment. Thick with tears.

"What is it?" she asked. A pit formed in her gut.

She heard Jack swallow on the other end of the line. "_I . . . something terrible happened."_

Jack didn't even have to elaborate. Hannah immediately knew.

* * *

_These are the last moments of Shepard's second life._

_She wakes in the middle of the sleep cycle, just as she has since her resurrection. She is seventy-two and her joints ache in time with the throb of the ship's engine. Her once vibrantly red hair is grey and her hands are knotted with age and care. But she still stands upright; her uniform hangs straight over unbent shoulders. And her eyes are as clear as they were in youth._

_Beside her, Kaidan sleeps. Her husband of almost forty years, as familiar and beloved as her own heartbeat. He's grey too, lined and weathered by their long lives. But there is still strength in him. His aim is steady and his biotics assured. She knows every mark and angle of him, every secret place. He belongs to her; they belong to each other. _

_Their joint careers are storied, the stuff of legends. The first human Spectres, Admirals of the Alliance Navy. They're celebrities and war heroes both, and they've done it all side by side. They have innumerable special commendations in their files and enough honors to decorate the broadside of a freighter. Together, they raised three children. Together, they lived._

_These are the last moments of Shepard and Kaidan's life together. _

_It begins with the sound of sirens._

* * *

As the eldest, Hannah was tasked with the responsibility of informing her younger brothers. Steven bore the news with stoic acceptance, and she found she envied his composure. He'd always been the steady one between them all, the one most like their father. But David raged. He insisted intel was mistaken, just like always; that old, broken joke. _Intel's behind the ball again, hah hah. When will they get it together?_

She told him it was no joke. Her voice was like a broken window.

He screamed at her.

* * *

"_Hostiles on ladar!" Shepard hears Joker shout via intercom. He's an inextricable part of their lives, and by this point this has become routine. He explicitly requested to serve permanently under their joint command, and considering his status, they didn't refuse him. He's as much of a war hero as the rest of them. Indeed, Shepard once joked that the Normandy had become a mausoleum for old Reaper War heroes, for they always found their way back here._

_The joke seems in poor taste, now._

_Immediately Kaidan is awake beside her, alert and halfway out of bed before she can blink. They throw on their uniforms together and rush to the elevator as quickly as they are able. _

_Just as the doors open, Kaidan presses a brief kiss into her hair. _

* * *

Aunt Jack was the first to visit. Though she was elderly now and fading, she was just as beautiful as Hannah remembered in her youth; vibrant and colorful and stubborn as darkness. She was tempered a bit by age. Also a bit by love, though Hannah had never heard her admit as much. She wouldn't be Aunt Jack if she spoke of feelings.

But she did now. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she'd only just stopped crying. "How are you doing, Hannah?" she asked. Her voice was so weak.

Hannah gathered Jack's cold hands in hers. "I'm fine. You look terrible."

"Still tactful as always." Jack rubbed her nose with a shaking hand. "It's difficult, is all. It's . . . it's hard to believe."

"I know what you mean."

"I always thought I'd be the first to go. James and I, in some harebrained excursion, just the way we like. I didn't think . . . I don't know. That old ship had been around so long, I started to think it could never be destroyed." They both knew they weren't talking about the _Normandy _any longer.

Hannah was quiet for a moment. She remembered her mother's stories of her namesake, the grandmother that she'd never known, the woman who had gone down with her ship. She knew the story so well that she could recite it backwards by rote. "I knew better than to think that," she said finally.

* * *

_At first, there is no panic. They've done this enough times that it has almost become routine. There is always some mercenary band or slaver group that gets it in their heads that they can take down the war heroes that patrol the galaxy, righting wrongs. There's always the optimist that thinks they can defeat the Normandy._

_However these optimists have a reason to be as such. They're deadly and prepared. They cripple the Normandy with surgical precision. They blast the core, they disable propulsion and communications, they cut off any thought of escape. They hammer the Normandy with unrepentant fire, blasting it out of the sky._

_And it occurs to Shepard that this could finally be the end. It is an end she's familiar with. Her mother died like this. She died like this over forty years ago. Such a long time ago, and yet those memories had not faded. She remembers what it's like to die in the void. _

"_All personnel," she says into the intercom, her heart sinking like a stone. "Abandon ship."_

* * *

The news was a blight on Hannah's life. They ran salvaged footage of the Normandy's last stand like clockwork, and it struck her that the reporters dissected it with almost malicious glee. They outlined the precision of the attack and the perfection of the Normandy's response, delighting that it had come to nothing. They liked a good tragedy, and what was more tragic that a bunch of war heroes dying on the ship that had survived the Reaper War?

She hated them. Carrion birds, feasting on her private grief. She refused interviews and devoted herself to her duties. It was something her father had taught her, from the time when she was hardly taller than his knee. Make your hands busy, he told her, and your thoughts will quiet. Then you can hear what's important.

There wasn't anything important to be heard now. There was grief and denial. There was guilt.

There was anger.

* * *

_Shepard armors quickly, checking her seals after a lifetime of habit. Beside her, Kaidan latches into his chestplate and secures the reserve oxygen tanks. It's as if they already know the end they're facing, and this beloved routine will allow them to do so with calm heads and steady hands._

_But before they put on their helmets, they kiss one last time._

* * *

Hannah had expected the Alliance to ask her to speak at her parents' memorial service, so it was no surprise when the request came; formally, by mail. It made sense; though she hadn't known them longest, she knew them best aside from Aunt Jack and Uncle James. She knew the Normandy best. It had been her home until she enlisted at eighteen.

Both Steven and David declined to speak. Steven because he was on duty, David because he refused to acknowledge their death publicly. Where Hannah's anger was seething and private, David flung his outward to whoever had the misfortune of getting too close. He was vicious with it. He wounded well-wishers with an almost feral glee.

"You need to pull yourself together," Hannah scolded him via vidcall the day before. "I understand what you're feeling, but everything you do and say reflects on them."

"You don't understand," he bit back. "You and Steven, you're so cold. You don't understand what this feels like."

She wanted to tell him that she did understand, perhaps better than he knew. She wanted to tell him that it felt like a hole had been carved out of her chest by an unskilled hand, ragged and raw. She wanted to say that since the news of their death, she hadn't been able to sleep, hadn't been able to eat. She hadn't been able to cry, though the seething tears burned behind her eyes and closed in her throat until she couldn't breathe.

"You don't know that," she said quietly.

But he'd already terminated the call.

* * *

_The ship is breaking apart around them, and there is a resonance of memory to this. She recalls a similar ship dying under her feet, a younger incarnation of the man beside her. There was no grey in his hair, then._

"_The crew is away," Kaidan tells her. "Except for Joker."_

_Of course. Just like before. "I'll get him squared away," she lies. They both know full well Joker won't budge. "I need you to get to the escape pods."_

_Here is where the memory diverges. She watches him smile from behind his helmet, his beautiful, beloved features, familiar as her own skin. "Not this time, Shepard."_

"_Kaidan, please –"_

"_No. I lost you like this once. I won't do it twice."_

_And in that manner, they chose their end._

* * *

Hannah wore her finest set of dress blues to the memorial. She tied her dark hair back in a clean knot and wore no makeup. When Jack and James saw her, Jack pressed a hand to mouth.

"What is it?" she wondered.

"You look so much like them," James said. Jack only shook her head, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Hannah had heard this all her life. She'd inherited her father's dark hair and skin, and her mother's delicate features, blue eyes, and angular nose. She was a perfect mix of the both of them. Oftentimes a child favored one parent over the other, but Hannah was a balanced blend.

It was appropriate, considering her parents only ever saw themselves as partners. Equals. "That's why it works, Hannah," her mother had said.

* * *

_They thud through the broken ship toward the cockpit. Most of the crew is dead. Huge chunks of fuselage float in the void, and in the distance they see a blue planet, a smattering of stars so much like the moles dotting his shoulder. She hears his steady breathing crackling in her earpiece. She treasures the sound of it._

_Joker is half dead already. He's barely clinging to consciousness, slumped over his sparking console. Shepard grabs his shoulder and his head lolls. He comes too, briefly._

"_Come on, Joker," she said, weakly. "Let's get you out of here."_

"_Not this time," he rasps after a moment. "This ship is my home. EDI . . . EDI is my home."_

_And Shepard understands. Kaidan understands. They've all chosen this for themselves. They don't rage against the inevitable, not anymore. _

_When the final volley of cannon fire rips the Normandy asunder—_

* * *

Some Admirals Hannah never met spoke first. They talked about the sacrifices Samantha Shepard and Kaidan Alenko made for the galaxy, the integral part they played in the Reaper War and the tumultuous years after. They ticked off their military achievements like notes on a grocery list, cold and unfeeling. They spoke of their faithful pilot, Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, who went down with the ship. They spoke of the loyalty of the crew, all the way to the very end.

At the front of the room, there was a row of portraits. Some of them were draped with flowers, too brightly colored for a funeral. There was choral music playing on the loudspeakers, and Hannah realized belatedly that it was a requiem her mother always liked. At the front of the row of portraits stood her mother and father's, together even in this place.

It's so inappropriate she could scream.

When it was her turn, she stood and slowly made her way to the podium. It occurred to her belatedly how many people were here, how many people were listening across the entire galaxy. Most of her mother's friend are already dead – Garrus and Tali, Javik, Zaeed. Liara is still alive, and Miranda. Some others.

She heard stifled sobbing in the crowd, the ragged sound of grief. She bit the inside of her cheek so hard that she tasted blood. She cleared her throat and leaned toward the mic.

"As far back as I can remember, I lived with my parents on the Normandy. I remember that ship better than I remember some people. My father chasing me through the halls, my mother hunched over her desk, diligently working long after I went to bed. She would be the last thing I saw before I fell asleep, every single night. I remember my room, their room, the cockpit, the mess, the CIC. I remember the Normandy the way some people remember family.

"I knew every single man and woman that died on the Normandy. Not just my parents. Specialist Gardner, who could sing each part of a barbershop quarter. Ensign Fitzgerald, who collected antique films. Dozens more. I could tell you stories about them for days.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and forged ahead.

"There was a time in my parents' lives where they were separated. My mother died on the first Normandy and my father lived without her for two years. He told me that in that time, he'd regretted obeying her last order to 'get the hell to the escape pods'. After she came back he didn't regret it so much anymore, and it was all for the best.

"But now . . . I think they both got the end they wanted. I asked them why they never retired, and Dad said the easy life bored him. Mom said there were still things to do out there in the galaxy. There were still people to save. They never got over the need to give themselves away, bit by bit until before they knew it, they were old and had no use for retirement.

"I don't think they wanted to die, but if they could have chosen how they went, they would have chosen exactly what happened. Fighting to their last breath, doing everything in their power to make the galaxy a better place. They'd do it exactly the same if they got another chance.

"Mom didn't believe in god, and Dad didn't have the patience for church. But if they're anywhere now, I think they're at peace. They died just the way that they lived. They died together."

* * *

_- Shepard grabs Kaidan's hands just as the last piece of deck breaks apart under their feet. They are thrown clear of the wreckage, buffeted by the blast. They are scorched by the silent flame, the impenetrable silence of the void, but they live._

_They float in the void, stunned. She realizes that they are still bound, hand in hand._

* * *

It was a few weeks after the memorial when the package arrived. There was no note and no return address, and only the most cursory postage. Hannah was tempted to throw it away without opening it when she caught the sight of an achingly familiar set of handwriting.

Her mother's.

She tore open the package as if she were a child at Christmas and not a woman of thirty-nine. It was like something out of a dream, she thought to herself. A package arriving for her, sent by a dead woman. Even if she had nothing left in her heart, she would have opened it anyway for curiosity's sake alone.

It was a plain box, and inside was an OSD. She popped it in without hesitation.

An image of her mother flickered on the screen. She was younger – there was still a fair bit of red in her hair – and her face was not as lined as it had been in the end. She saw her own eyes looking back at her, in the face of a dead woman.

"_Hannah," _her mother said. "_If you're watching this, I have died on the Normandy." _She sighed. "_You don't live as long as I do without getting a certain sense for things, and I always figured my number would be up while I served. It was for my mom, it was for me the first time. I pray it will never be for you._

"_I know it'll make you angrier to hear this, but I know what you're feeling. I was the same way when my mom died. I was an icy ghost. I didn't cry, I didn't rage. I didn't engage. In a small way, I hated her for leaving me when I needed her still. And if I'm right about you, my Hannah, you must hate me in the same way."_

Hannah's hands clawed against her face, but even though the picture of her beloved and hated mother blurred she kept her eyes wide open.

"_I'm just going to tell you that it's okay to be angry. It's okay to feel like we abandoned you, your father and I. Because we have. Death is abandonment, and we all suffer it eventually. Uncle James lost his mother when he was very young, you lost yours hopefully when you were older, just like your father. But that loss will always hurt. It weathers with age, but it doesn't go away. It didn't for me._

"_We love you desperately, my Hannah-bean. I loved you when I carried you, I love you now, and I'll love you beyond. If I could have stayed over your shoulder and watched you live, I would have. Ah, I can just see your grumpy face now – you don't like it when I dote on you - but you've always made me so proud."_

Hannah made a sound like a dying animal, trapped deep in her throat. It was that grief she'd swallowed for weeks, the grief that now threatened to burst free.

"_I know you, Hannah-bean. In a lot of ways, you're like me. We've both struggled to do what is right, we've both struggled to be strong when it felt like the world was coming down around us. Let me give you one last piece of motherly advice, for posterity. I know you'll never give up your crusades, but don't keep yourself in an icy box forever, afraid to let yourself go. That's no way to live. _

"_I won't go on and on, though I could very easily. You'll know this if you ever have children, but you adore them from the moment you meet them, from the moment you feel them press against your ribs, beating with your own heart. _

"_Just remember what I said. Keep this around and pop it in if you ever miss me at all. Wherever it is that we go after death, I'll be missing you. I know that much._

"_I'll be seeing you, Hannah-bean. I love you."_

Her mother faded from view, the last remnants of her voice hanging in the still silence, the keening quiet. And for the first time since she had learned her parents' final tragic fate, Hannah gave herself over to grief. With her mother to guide her, she let herself feel every sharp, ragged thing that clawed and rent and bit, and she did not shy away from it. She grieved as a last measure of respect, of care.

She grieved for an immeasurable depth of love; not a wound, not a scar, but a fixture as plain as the nose on her face.

* * *

_Shepard wonders for a moment if the merc ships will blast them out of the sky, but they are too small to be seen among the flaming wreckage. The ships leave and they are alone, floating in the void._

_She knows that help won't come in time. _

_She is thankful that though the blast threw them clear, it did not break them apart. Kaidan's hands are firm around hers, and together they drift in the darkness._

_It is a slow thing, to die this time. It takes a few hours for the air to run out. They remember their lives together; the first time they met, the first Normandy. Saren, the geth. Her death and resurrection. Their slow reconciliation. The Reaper War, the final battle, nine months spent apart while she carried Hannah. Many happy years since them. Countless nights spent entwined, sometimes after lovemaking as passionate and tender as that first time over Ilos._

"_I've loved you my whole life," Kaidan tells her._

"_I've loved you for two," she replies._

_And there is no more to be said after that. _

_After a few hours, he drifts off first. He goes still in her hands and she no longer hears the steady sound of his breathing crackling in her earpiece. She knows she's not far behind. The air in her tank is growing thin, and it's harder to breathe. It feels like a dagger in her ribs, a blade in her lungs. She isn't sucking in oxygen anymore, and the end is here._

_But this isn't like the last time she died in the void, clawing for life, struggling, desperate with fear. This time she is with the man she loved most, with his hands stiff and still around hers. This time they shared a slow, steady goodbye, and when she dies, it is with a smile on her lips. _


End file.
